


InstaFamous

by m11kewheeler



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Fluff, Friendship, el becomes insta famous, especially dustin, the boys are jealous
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-16
Updated: 2016-09-16
Packaged: 2018-08-15 07:52:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8048365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/m11kewheeler/pseuds/m11kewheeler
Summary: Silly little modern day au where Mike teaches Eleven the wonders of Instagram.





	InstaFamous

“But why would strangers want to see pictures I post?” 

“I don’t know, I guess it’s just entertaining?” 

Eleven frowned. She was getting better at understanding the world around her, but Instagram was the one thing she still couldn’t quite grasp. 

“Look,” Mike handed her his phone. “It’s mostly just for friends and stuff. 

Eleven scrolled through the nine likes on his newest post, recognizing a few of the names. “Who is ‘D_Pudding_Man’?” 

Mike rolled his eyes. “It’s just Dustin.” 

“Why is name like that?” Eleven clicked on his profile, dozens of pictures of the four boys popping up. 

“You have to have like a username for Instagram,” Mike explained. “Like my username is ‘M_Wheelz.’ Not really that creative, but I’m too lazy to change it.” 

“What should my username be?” El reached for the new phone Joyce bought for her and opened up the app. 

“Um…” Mike hopped up and down in his seat, trying to think. “Oooh, I got it!” El handed him her phone and he began typing, shielding it away from her. “There you go,” he said after a moment, handing her back the phone. 

“EggoEl?” Eleven squinted at him with a tiny smirk. 

“Like it?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, now all you have to do it upload pictures and caption them and stuff. You have all the photos I sent you, right?” 

“Yes,” she said, opening her ‘Photos’ app. What was once just an empty folder was now full of pictures of Eleven with the boys, some of her with Nancy, and some of just herself–selfies, Mike said to call them. Nancy had taught her how to take them correctly. 

“Now just post one of them,” Mike said. “That’s a good one.” He pointed to a recent picture of her, Mike, Will, Lucas, and Dustin celebrating Lucas’s thirteenth birthday at the bowling alley. 

“What’s all this stuff?” Eleven asked, giving her phone back to Mike. 

“Oh, those are filters. You use them to make pictures look cooler.” He clicked on one called ‘Valencia’. “See?”

El gasped lightly at the lighting change. “Okay, now what?” 

“Now you have to write a caption.” Mike thought for a second, grinned, and typed something once again into the phone before handing it back to her, trying to conceal a smirk. 

“What is ‘squad goals’?” 

Mike started to crack up. “It’s just a phrase,” he said, shaking his head in amusement. _She still had so much to learn_. “Okay, now you’re ready to post it.” 

Eleven took one last look at the picture and caption before hitting ‘post.’ “Now what?” 

“Well, nothing yet. Since you don’t have any followers yet, no one sees your picture, but since I tagged it with a bunch of stuff, hopefully people will see it and follow you.” 

“Okay,” El nodded, pretending to understand the jumble of words that came out of Mike’s mouth. 

Later that night, Eleven went back to the Byers home– _her_ home–and played around with Instagram some more. She added various filters on the pictures saved to her camera roll, making them look as pretty as possible, and went wild with the posting. It wasn’t until posting the 19th picture that she finally looked at the clock next to her bed and groaned at the 3:42am blinking back at her. So with that, she clicked her phone off and went to sleep, completely unaware of the notifications piling up on picture after picture…

* * *

“You showed her Instagram, right?” Lucas tore open a bag of chips and took a seat at the table in Mike’s basement the next day. 

“Yeah,” Mike said. He turned to Eleven. “Have you gotten any followers yet?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I haven’t checked since last night,” Eleven said, handing Mike her phone. She was still getting used to how all the buttons worked. 

“Um, El…” Mike said, the tone of his voice concerning Eleven. “How do you have over 400 followers?”

“ _What_?!” Lucas, Will, and Dustin gasped. 

“I’ve had my account for a year and I only have 120 followers,” Dustin said.

“You have more than the four of us _combined_ ,” muttered Lucas. “What did you post?” 

“Just…Pictures,” Eleven shrugged. 

Dustin’s eyes grew wide. “Of what?” 

“It’s the pictures she has of us and some selfies and stuff,” Mike said, still scrolling through El’s account. “But they’re all artsy with cool filters and a bunch of tags.” 

“I guess people like that,” Will spoke up.

“It’s not fair,” Dustin pouted. “I’ve been trying for months to get more followers and she gets all of them in less than twelve hours.” 

“It’s probably because of the selfies,” Mike said without thinking. “People probably followed her because they’re pretty I guess.”

“I bet that’s why _you_ followed her,” Lucas teased. 

“Shut up,” Mike mumbled, turning bright red. Luckily for him, Eleven was too busy with her phone to notice. 

“All these people are following me because I’m pretty?” 

Dustin nodded and draped his arm around her shoulder. “You’ll be Insta-famous before you even know it.”

“Insta what?” 

Mike shook his head. “Just ignore him.”

“Well,” Lucas said, “I guess now’s the time to introduce you to Snapchat.” 

**Author's Note:**

> (valencia is totally my favorite ig filter btw)
> 
> (also headcanon that once mike teaches her all about snapchat, el just sends him snaps of her with the dog face filter at random times in the day when he’s at school and it totally brightens up his day)


End file.
